Big Money

A teenager and his girlfriend come into the store right after opening time one day. They rent a single $1 movie. Fernando fills out the rental slip, tells them the total, and goes to retrieve the disc.

When Fernando returns he looks down to see Ben Franklin's face stamped upon the bill resting on the countertop.

“You don't have anything smaller?” Fernando asks.

“I want to break it,” says the teenager in response.

“I recognize this fact. But it's a one hundred dollar bill. I just opened, and cashing change for that would effectively ruin my till for the rest of the day.”

“I want to break it,” the young man repeats. “You have to take it because that's what I'm paying with.”

“Okay, fine then. Hang on a second.” Fernando takes the hundred and heads to his deposit envelope. He places the hundred inside and withdraws an equivalent amount of change: four twenties and a pair of tens. Then he hands the twenties and one ten over.

The other one he makes change for. It just so happens that somebody the day before had paid for couple rentals all in quarters, dimes, and nickels, so Fernando was able to clean that clutter out of his till. The remaining difference he reaches through ones. “There ya go.”

“Dude, that ain't cool,” the teen whines, nonetheless taking the money and sequestering it.

“Neither is paying with a hundred when you have a one dollar bill right there, after I told you how big a pain in the ass it would be to change out from my start till,” says Fernando, pointing to a piece of crinkled, Washington-emblazoned paper money the customer has nestled in his wallet. Then Fernando smiles. “Have a nice day.”